Yakima SightLine FX Crossbar for Flush Rails - 36-1/2" Long - Qty 1

Video Transcript for Yakima SightLine FX Flush Rails Crossbar Comprehensive Review

Hello neighbor, this is Curt with etrailer, and today we're gonna take a look at the Yakima SightLine FX Roof Rack System. Now, if you've had any experience with this roof rack or if you watch this video and you have some questions about it, go ahead and leave those in the comments below. We'd love to take your questions and your experiences, share those with our other neighbors in order to help them make the best decision for themselves. So a roof rack system is gonna be very, very handy for you in those times where maybe you've got a vehicle full of passengers, there's luggage and bags for everybody, and you just don't have enough space in the vehicle for it. Or there may be times where you're carrying objects that are frankly too large to fit in the vehicle. Or just objects that you don't want riding in the vehicle with you.

A roof rack like the SightLine FX is gonna come in very handy for you with a 165 pound weight capacity. However, you do of course wanna double-check the weight capacity of the roof of your vehicle and make sure that it can carry at least that. If it cannot, you would have to use that lower capacity instead. So this is gonna allow you to use both clamp-mounted and track-mounted accessories. It is what they call an aero style bar, so it's in a blade shape, thinner to the back.

That's really gonna help it aerodynamically. It's gonna cut down on road noise, and it's also gonna help a little bit with gas mileage. Now the SightLine FX is a flush crossbar system, so it's not an overhanging crossbar. This really creates kind of a cleaner look for you and it gives really a more factory look. What it is gonna limit you on though, however, is bar space.

So rather than having the full bar like you would with an overhanging system, this one is gonna really only give you space between the two towers in order to mount your accessories. That is gonna limit you to mounting things toward the center of the vehicle. If you're in a situation where you think you might want to have more than one accessory up here side by side, you're probably gonna wanna take a look at an overhanging crossbar system, which also can be found right here on etrailer.com. Now that we're up here on top, you can see the T-track where those T-slot accessories are gonna go into. The access point is in the middle here, so you would push down on this and slide your accessory over to wherever you want it before you tighten it down.

A lot of crossbar systems, particularly overhanging ones, are gonna have you access that track from the outside of the bar. However, with this being enclosed, that's not going to work obviously, so they put them out in the center. And I actually kind of like this a little bit better because I don't have to remove and replace anything when I'm changing out accessories. I could simply come up here to the top, get it down, and pushed over to wherever I want it, and I don't have to worry about removing the end caps from my bars or from my towers. So as you could see, this weather stripping is also gonna help cut down on road noise. And because of the way this mounts, you wouldn't have to trim this and create gaps in order to get those T-tracks mounted. This is great because the weather stripping stays there, so you're not gonna get all that extra road noise and whistling that you can experience without it. Let's go ahead and take a look at the inside of our towers and see how those work. We're just gonna simply press in on either side of the cap here, take it off. Now what we'll find in here is we do see the end of our crossbar there. In other systems, you would access that strip through here. However, as we said, I do like that center mounting position. Right here, what we have is where our lock core would go. Now, when you purchase the SightLine FX, you are gonna get this plastic cap that'll go in here. You could just use a flathead screwdriver to go ahead and get that out. But Yakima uses what they call the SKS or same key system. You can get a set of keys and lock cores to replace all of these in your towers and be keyed alike. You could also have them keyed alike to any of your Yakima accessories that you're gonna take with you. So now that that's out, this would be the point here where your clips for your rails would go and where you would tighten everything down. Now, the way this is going to mount is gonna be through this rubber pad. And then there are two clips, one that goes on either side of your rail here, that through this bolt are gonna be tightened down and grab around the lip of your rails. So since we discussed these base clips and how they attach onto your rails, it is important to note that the combination of bars that you get are gonna be very vehicle-specific. The base clips themselves, you're gonna have to pay close attention to getting the correct ones so that they contour appropriately around your vehicle's rails. Also, these flush rail systems have a tendency to taper as you get from the back to the front. It'll actually kind of expand in most cases. So you can very often find yourself with two different sizes in the SightLine FX crossbars. Just another reason to use our fit guide on etrailer.com, just to make sure that you're getting the right combination of clips and bar sizes. But with all that being said, it's a relatively simple install. There is a little tweaking that gets involved as far as making sure that you're in the correct area. But I do think that if you are looking for a roof rack that is flush and not overhanging, I do think that the SightLine FX is an excellent choice for you. I particularly like how the tracks mount through the center and doesn't make me have to remove and replace these end caps every time I wanna switch out accessories. So the Yakima SightLine FX will be an excellent choice for you. My name's Curt with etrailer. Thanks for stopping by.